


Spellbound

by brokenhighways



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Magic, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenhighways/pseuds/brokenhighways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared doesn’t realise that his best friend Chad is a wizard until one day, Chad casts a spell on him and Jared somehow materializes on the desk of one Jensen Ackles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spellbound

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, I have no idea what this is. But hey! Written for the magic square on my cotton candy bingo card. Thanks to soncnica for the quick beta and thanks to anon_fan for reading through it :)

 

Chad’s always claimed to be some sort of master at sorcery. It’s probably why Jared is his only friend, not that Chad seems to care. Plus it’s not like Jared doesn’t believe that Chad is a wizard. He just thinks that wizard probably means something else to Chad. No actual wizard would tell that many wand jokes anyway. Besides, weirdness aside, Chad is actually a pretty good friend who listens to Jared drone on and on. And Jared’s been known to talk for hours on end about anything. But mostly his woeful love life. So it’s not surprising when Chad gets fed up one day. Jared’s halfway through telling Chad about his disastrous date last night when he notices that Chad’s face is turning red.  
  
“Uh, Chad,” Jared says hesitantly as Chad reaches for his glass of beer and starts chugging it down rapidly. They’re at their local bar on a Friday night, chilling as usual. Though, Chad usually doesn’t look like he’s going to burst within three seconds. “Buddy, are you okay?”

Chad slams his glass down and starts to make hand gestures that Jared doesn’t even bother to interpret. After about a minute or so, Chad starts to calm down and Jared realises that maybe he should have called for help or something.

He’s always had a deflective flight response.  
  
“Sorry about that,” Chad says, his voice is steady and calm and Jared blinks at him. Chad’s always been a little strange, well, what else can Jared expect from someone who thinks that he’s a wizard? But this seems different somehow, Chad looks contrite. Like, he’s just come to a decision over something he’s been struggling with. It gives Jared the shivers and he frowns at his best friend.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asks as Chad suddenly signals for another beer. Chad takes his time to answer as he stares (okay so it’s more of a squint) at Jared quietly.

“N-nothing,” he stammers slightly just as his drink arrives. Jared watches as Chad gulps it down in a few seconds and he raises his eyebrows. Before he can make a disparaging comment, Chad holds up his hand and says,

“Look, just wait it out and I promise that nothing bad will happen.” Jared honestly starts to wonder if Chad’s finally cracked up completely. But then suddenly something hits him with the force of a damn freight train and everything goes black.

\--

When Jared comes to, he finds himself lying on a hard surface. There’s a voice in the distance saying, “Thi isn't air, Chad. We agreed that wouldn't o this anymore!” The voice sounds angry and Jared frowns to himself. Before he can process anything else his mind zeroes in on the fact that the voice mentioned Chad. It sends his nerve signals firing and he sits up quickly, wincing as the rush of his sudden movement gives him a minor dizzy spell. The voice doesn’t say anything else and as Jared’s gaze becomes focused once more, he finds himself staring into a pair of dazzling, green eyes. He puts his hand out and jerks backwards when it collides with a cheekbone. Of course he doesn’t realise that he’d been perched on a desk until he ends up face first on the carpeted floor.

“Fucking Chad,” the voice says and really, Jared strongly agrees with that sentiment.  
\--  
  
So it turns out that Chad really is a wizard, according to Green Eyes, who eventually introduces himself as Jensen Ackles. He doesn’t seem too excited about the fact, he sounds almost wary as he confirms Chad’s sorcery. Somehow, this doesn’t surprise Jared at all. After Jensen helps Jared up and fetches him an ice pack, there’s another angry phone call. Jared listens curiously and Jensen yells at Chad some more but he doesn’t ask to speak to him. He’s still trying to process the whole, wizard thing. After Jensen places his phone back into his pocket, he strides over to a huge filing cabinet in the corner of the office. After a few seconds he pulls out a large stack of papers. Jared watches him warily as he slams the cabinet shut and tosses the papers on the desk. He walks around it and sits down in front of his computer across from Jared.

“Start filling that in,” he says as he gestures towards the pen holder to the left of where Jared is. Jared’s still too stumped to say anything so he busies himself with selecting a pen. “What’s your full name?” Jensen asks as he types away furiously and Jared frowns. What if Jensen is some kind of mobster or contract killer? Or worse - another wizard.

“Jared,” he says nervously. “Jared Padalecki.” Jensen freezes and his fingers still above the keyboard as realisation dawns on his face. Bizarrely enough, the tense expression on his face seems to melt away and he smiles. Jared can’t help smiling back, looking into Jensen’s eyes as he does. He feels his heart swoop in his chest and forces himself to look away.

“So you’re the Jared that Chad always talks about?” It sounds like a question but Jensen looks away and Jared gets the impression that Jensen already knows who he is. As Jensen types loudly, Jared glances down at the sheets in front of him. He reads through the first page slowly, and then the second page. By the time he‘s done with page three something has clicked in his mind.

“Is this some sort of dating agency?” Over the past few months he’s signed up to a few and done those tedious sections for his profile, so he’s familiar with how some of them run. Though, the stack of papers he’s currently holding seem a little too extensive to him. Jensen looks surprised at his question, but he soon masks that as his face smooths into an indifferent expression.

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” he asks nonchalantly, and Jared blinks at him. Before he can even formulate an answer Jensen hits a few keys on his computer, stands up and grabs his coat from behind his chair.

 

“I need a drink,” he says with a sigh, as he saunters past Jared and heads for the door. For some reason, Jared can’t help following Jensen, his eyes drawn to the other man as they make their way downstairs.

That’s why he doesn’t notice the words on the papers disappear.

\--  
  
Jensen’s dating agency is conveniently across the street from a bar. A fact that’s very pleasing to Jared as their fourth pitcher of beer arrives at the table. Jensen hasn't said much and it’s starting to get a little awkward, so Jared decides to break the silence.

“So, how do you know Chad?” he asks.

“He crashed into my car.”

“Oh,” Jared says dumbly. “I mean, were you alright?” Jensen snorts at that, as he drains his glass and fills it back up again. He’s been doing that all night, snorting at random things that Jared says with responding and suddenly, Jared feels a burst of annoyance. He sets his glass down and stands up; all set to leave and go home and preferably punch Chad in the face.

A hand on his forearm stops him in his tracks. Jared’s never really believed in that whole, sparks flying literally when you meet “the one” thing. Or that humans react like that to a simple touch. But it happens when Jensen touches him. He feels a spark, a sort of tingly feeling travelling down his arm and his breath catches in his throat. He turns back to look at Jensen, who’s staring at him with wide eyes and he can’t help staring right back.

“Uh,” Jensen starts to say as he yanks his arm back. “Don’t go yet. I’m sorry for being an ass, okay? Just, I thought I was done with all of this magic crap. I’ll explain everything, okay.” Jared can’t seem to find his voice so he just nods.

\--

When they reach Jensen’s apartment block, Jared comes to a realisation. Unlike Dorothy, he’s still in Kansas. Or well Texas. He’s not sure why Chad’s magic spell had been necessary when he could have just hopped onto a Greyhound bus or something. He mentally adds one more point to his number of times I’m going to punch Chad list. The reason why he knows this is that he drives past this same block every day on the way to work. So, he didn’t even need to get a bus, Chad could have just given him directions. Jared sighs. Maybe this is all a trick, maybe Chad isn’t really a wizard and Ashton Kutcher is going to emerge from some corner somewhere to inform that he’s been PUNK’d.

“You look off,” Jensen says once he’s directed Jared to his couch and gotten them both beers.

“I live twenty minutes away from here,” Jared says. “Why didn’t Chad just introduce us? Unless of course, this is his way of introducing us and the whole wizard thing is just a lie.”

“God, I wish it was a lie.”

“Okay, well, explain then.”

“So, I used to work for a financial firm as a broker. I wasn’t really that high up on the food chain, but I had enough to live on for a while after the firm went bust,” Jensen says, pausing as he takes a long swig of beer. Jared can already see where this story is headed but he doesn’t say anything.

“And then one day, I was driving back from an interview - they said I was over qualified - and BAM, got smashed into by Chad, “ Jensen continues. “He started going on about how he doesn‘t have insurance or something and it just escalated from there.” Jared frowns as he tries to remember the last time Chad even had a car. He‘s fairly certain that Chad doesn’t even have a valid license.

“So how did that end up with me somehow being transported to your office?“ Jared asks. As he glances at Jensen, he notices how pale and tired he looks. He mentally forgives him for the frosty attitude at the bar. Chad doesn’t exactly make anyone‘s life easy.

“Instead of paying for the damage, he said that he could help me out, jobwise. He explained that he was a wizard who could gift me with ability---“

“And you believed him?“ Jared interrupts in disbelief. Jensen laughs humourlessly, and it’s so self-depreciating that Jared regrets asking the question.

“At that point, I was willing to believe anything.“ Jensen sighs heavily as he picks at the label on his beer bottle. “And he was telling the truth, within three months, my dating agency had the best success rate in the area. But I got tired of it all, and told Chad that I was quitting the face-to-face thing. At first he was okay with it but apparently, the termination of the spell rests on the fate of one last customer.”

“And I guess that would be me?” Jared says morosely. Jensen looks over then, and shoots him a small smile.

“I don’t mind now that I know it’s you,” he replies. “Chad used to drop by to collect his payments – the bastard – and we’d talk and you’d come up. I feel like I know you.”

Jared’s not sure why that sends a wave of butterflies crashing inside his stomach.

\--

According to Jensen, he’s usually able to match people within a day. He manages the agency solely via an online website now that he’s no longer doing face to face consultations. It’s the next day, and after a night spent on Jensen’s sofa, they’re back at his office. Jared’s been lumbered with the huge stack of papers once again. He grumbles quietly as he writes his answers neatly. Jared’s not sure why Jensen doesn’t just allow him to complete an online profile. His whining and protesting leads to a long, drawn out explanation of how exactly Jensen pairs each couple together.

Jared’s head is spinning by the time Jensen’s finished telling him how the magic works. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but the magic just speeds the process up by a ridiculous rate. If anything it’s monumentally creepy that the questions of the page vanish as he completes them.

“I only have a 75% success rate with the online profiles; me and Chad are still working on some tweaks. Speaking of Chad, he’s on his way,” Jensen says as Jared flips over another page. Before he can put his pen to paper, a large gust of wind sends them scattering across the floor. Chad appears out of nowhere, dressed in a weird, ugly, purple cloak. He glares as Jared starts to slow-clap.

“All you’re missing is a large pointy hat,” Jensen says with a smirk, laughing as Chad flips him the bird.

“I was at the 34,000th Annual Wizard Convention,” Chad snaps. “I didn't have time to change. God, I hate those damn conventions.” Jared meanwhile is somehow reprocessing the whole wizard thing all over again.

“So, you’re really a wizard?” he asks, in between gaping at Chad. Chad waves a hand, and Jared’s open mouth suddenly snaps shut and Jensen’s gasp is audible.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jared retorts and he’s just glad Chad hasn’t glued his lips together or something. Instead of responding Chad sweeps his cloak across his torso just as Jared stands up to pick up the papers. He’s not sure how it happens, but he stumbles and ends up face planting into Jensen’s lap. Or rather Jensen’s crotch.

Jared sighs to himself as Chad starts laughing manically behind him.

\--

“So, how’s it going,” Chad asks as he reclines on the couch in Jensen’s office and chews his cool ranch chips loudly. Jared winces and shares a wary look with Jensen. Jensen hasn’t told him much, but it’s been one night, and half a day and he hasn’t been matched up with anyone yet. Jensen shakes his head gently and Chad’s eyes grow sympathetic.

“Don’t worry bro,” he says reassuringly. “Jensen is a pro at all of this. The cupids are glad to have him on board.” Jared watches Jensen as he sighs in exasperation and decides not to say anything.

\--

  
Jensen takes him out that night, to a fancy restaurant called  _Fantasia._   According to Chad, Jensen usually gives his clients date nights when he’s not able to match them up quickly. Jared sometimes longs for a best friend that has tact. He’s starting to like Jensen a whole lot more than he should and it doesn’t help that he’s so undesirable that Jensen can’t even find a potential suitor for him. It leaves Jared feeling extremely miserable and gloomy. Even when Jensen agrees to share his banana split with him. He mentally adds another tick to the  _How Perfect Is Jensen Ackles For Me_  list in his head. In the string of dates he’s been on in the last few months, none of them have wanted to stick around for desert in the form of sugary, unhealthy goodness. And, while Jared’s desperate for love, he’s just not that desperate for someone to have him at the mere thought of the last guy he’d been out with.

“So, are you seeing anyone?” Jared asks as Jensen spoons some of the banana split in his mouth. He watches, his eyes transfixed on Jensen as he swallows and licks at his plump, moist lips. He’s so busy staring that he almost misses Jensen’s reply.

“Uh, no.” Jensen shoots him an unreadable look and Jared doesn’t press any further. If Jared was in Jensen’s position, the first thing he would have done is type his own name in the system and try and find his own soul mate. Perhaps Jensen just isn’t that selfish. Or maybe he’s not ready for a relationship.

“So, I was wondering, say you matched someone from like, Guatemala with someone in England, how would that work out?” Jared asks because it’s been bugging him all day. He’s sure that there’s lots of intricacies involved in the whole process that he doesn’t understand, but there’s no way that Jensen can just wave a magic wand and make all of the mismatched puzzle pieces fit together.

Chad, on the other hand, does indeed have a magic wand that Jensen can wave.

“Chad has a wand?” Jared exclaims, ignoring the suspicious looks he gets from the couple at the next table. Jensen throws his head back and laughs loudly, not even caring that people are looking their way. Jared kind of falls in love right there and then.

“Yeah, he does,” Jensen replies when he’s caught his breath. “At one point, it was shaped like a dick.”

“That doesn’t even surprise me.”

“He had a matching cloak too.”

“I’m still not surprised.”

“And he had special clogs designed to match the entire outfit,” Jensen says and Jared chokes on the cherry he’s midway through swallowing. Jensen just lets out a whoop of laughter as Jared glares at him.

\--

By the end of the next day Jared’s pretty sure that Jensen’s finally going to come up with something and he picks out a nice shirt and uses a little more cologne than he usually does. He gives himself at least ten mini-pep talks. But by the time his doorbell rings, he’s a nervous wreck. It’s not like the magic won’t work or anything. Hell, it has to. Right? Right, he tells himself as he makes his way over to the door.

“Oh, it’s you,” Jared says as Chad steps in once he’s opened the door. “Since when do you knock?”

“So…there might be a problem.” Chad ignores the question as he saunters into Jared’s living room and Jared sighs as he follows him. “So…this whole spell thing? It mighta been illegal.”

“Excuse me?” Jared’s not sure what his response is supposed to be here because he hasn’t really processed the whole magic is real thing. Not while all of his energy has been focused on the whole  _I might finally find my true love_  thing. Jared has priorities. And magic will never be one of them.

“I wasn’t at the 34,000th Annual Wizard Convention. I was at the High Court of Sorcery, standing trial for Illegal Practices,” Chad explains. “They terminated the spell and fined me. Can you believe those bastards? Where the hell am I supposed to find 500,000 golden coins?” Jared doesn’t even blink, he’s still stuck on terminated the spell.

“Well, have you told Jensen?” he asks. “Will it affect the other couples that he’s matched up?” Chad gives Jared a look that says that he hadn’t even considered that and out of nowhere a bright purple phone box appears in the middle of the room. Chad holds up a finger and mouths ‘one minute’ before he steps into it. Jared watches in shock as Chad has a very loud and animated conversation in what sounds suspiciously like Latin. After a few minutes the call comes to an end and Chad steps out.

“That was a Cupid that I used to date, she’s agreed to make sure that all the previous magic stays intact,” Chad says and Jared breathes a sigh of relief. He can’t imagine how devastated Jensen would have been if all that work would have been undone.

“Thanks,” he says gratefully and Chad raises an eyebrow at him.

“I would have done it anyway,” He insists. “Jensen might have had the magic on his side but all of that matching crap was mostly 

him. And I owe the dude anyway; the money we’ve made from that dating shit is going to help pay that freaking fine.”

“Right,” Jared says. “So that’s all sorted and I’m basically back to square fucking one. It’s no wonder that Jensen hasn’t been able to find anything.” Chad gives him a sympathetic look and Jared glares at him before flopping down onto his couch.

He may or may not be pouting.

“That was your cue to leave,” he adds icily and he hears Chad mutter “sheesh” as he’s leaving the room. A couple of seconds pass by before Chad pops his head through the doorway.

“Maybe you should go and see Jensen. He might have come up with some after all.”

Jared does his best to ignore Chad.

\--

Three days later Jared finds himself at work, lost in thought at his desk. He hasn’t been in contact with Jensen and Jensen hasn’t tried to reach him either. After consuming two and a half tubs of Ben and Jerry’s, Jared had all but conceded that maybe it just wasn’t to be. After all Chad had most likely taken pity on him and well, Jared isn’t that desperate anymore. Love’s overrated, he tells himself. He doesn’t need someone to snuggle up with on the couch, or someone to hold or—

“Jared, you’ve got a call on line 3.” One of his co-workers disrupts his thought and Jared sighs in relief.

“Hi, it’s Jensen.” Jared’s relief is short lived as Jensen’s voice comes down the line. He briefly considers hanging up, but he decides to listen to what Jensen has to say. It can’t possibly make him feel any worse than he does already.

“Look,” Jensen carries on without waiting for Jared to respond. “Chad told me about his trial and everything, and how they cancelled the spell.”

“Oh,” is all Jared can bring himself to say. He’s never been one for eloquence.

“But I already knew about it,” Jensen says. “Those wizard people zapped me out of bed at 3 in the damn morning and made me testify before The High Wizard Court.” Jared grimaces at that because he’s still trying to pretend that the whole wizard part of Chad doesn’t exist.

“So what I’m saying is that, it didn’t affect your search because they granted me permission to carry out one last time. And last night, I finally got something.” Jensen’s voice sounds kind of weird but Jared puts it downs to nerves or something.

“That’s awesome,” he says instead of asking Jensen what the problem is. He can always ask him later. “When should I swing by?”

\--

There are four cupcakes and a warm vanilla latte waiting on Jensen’s coffee table for Jared when he arrives at Jensen’s apartment. In normal circumstances, Jared wouldn't even take issue with it. But in this case, Jared should be the one bringing Jensen something as a sign of appreciation or something. Why would Jensen need to sweeten the fact that he’s found Jared’s soul mate? The look on Jensen’s face doesn’t help matters either and Jared frowns as he takes a seat across from Jensen.

“I stopped by the bakery and thought of you, so I picked something up.” It sounds hollow even to Jared and the look on Jensen’s face doesn’t exactly scream  _hey, totally telling the truth here_  either.

“Is everything okay?” Jared asks when it seems as though they’re about to lapse into an uncomfortable silence. “Cause, you sounded kinda weird on the phone, and now you’re buying me cupcakes and shit. If you haven’t found someone then you know…that’s fine. I can handle it.”

“I found someone I’m just…not sure if it’s the person that you were looking for.” Without any further ado, Jensen leans over and slides his tablet computer. Jared picks it up, his eyes scanning the screen eagerly. His eyes scroll down to the part where the result is and he freezes. It says, 'Jensen Ackles.'

The tablet clatters down onto the table noisily. Jared can’t quite categorize his emotions. He would be lucky if Jensen was his actual soul mate – Jensen’s a good guy, he’s only known him for a couple of weeks but he can tell. But the problem is that Jensen also seems like the kinda guy who’d try and spare his feelings. He probably came up with the whole plan with Chad. Maybe he’d date Jared for a few weeks or something and then let him down gently.

He stands up abruptly, and turns to look down at Jensen.

“You’re wondering if Chad and I came up with this to spare your feelings.” Jensen gets his words out first and Jared balls his fists in frustration. He’s not the kind of guy to rant and yell but damn if he doesn’t want to fucking say his piece right now.

“Would I be wrong?” he says instead, not caring that there’s a tremor in his voice as he realises that he really does want to be wrong.

When I first met Chad he used to talk about his best friend all the time. Sometimes he’d just tell a random story, or he’d be bitching about your latest disastrous date or your ugly, flowery shirts—“

“Whoa, whoa,” Jared interrupts. “My flowery shirts are awesome.” Jensen smiles a little at that but carries on,

“So anyway, long story short, Chad told me a lot about you. He even said at one point, that we’d be a good match together. Soon after that I realised that I was starting to feel things for this guy that he was telling me about. Which is crazy, right? So I decided to run my name through the dating agency.”

“And you got me?” Jared asks and Jensen nods.

“I got your name,” he says. “But Chad only ever called you “Jay” whenever he mentioned your name.”

“So you had no idea it was me…” Jared replies. “But, it must have all clicked when I appeared on your desk?”

Jensen shakes his head and says, “I didn’t know what you looked like. It’s only when you started filling the form that I realised who you were.”

“So why didn’t you say anything?” Jared wants to believe what Jensen’s saying. Hell, he does believe it. But he can’t understand how Jensen just failed to mention the fact he was Jared’s freaking soul mate.

“I was nervous!” Jensen’s voice rises a little and Jared sinks back down onto his chair. “I’d always had this huge speech in my head that I’d say to you when we eventually met, but…you just appeared out of nowhere. That kinda messes with a guy’s head.” He laughs softly and Jared can’t help smiling at him softly. He kind of wants to hash this over some more and figure out how this all happened. But then he looks up at Jensen, sees the light in his eyes and just decides to accept it. They might not be in love with each other yet, but Jared already likes Jensen. He likes him a lot and well, at this moment in time, he can’t really think of a better potential soul mate.

He’d be an idiot to let Jensen go.  
  
\--

Things are awkward at first. Jensen is too quiet and Jared’s too loud. By the time they reach the end of their third date, Jared starts to feel that familiar sense of dread. They’re both trying too hard, both trying to paper over cracks. But there shouldn’t be any cracks. Not when this is so new. Jared looks up as Jensen steps out of the bar and catches a fleeting glimpse of a pained expression in Jensen’s eyes. It clicks suddenly. This isn't new for Jensen. He’s technically known about Jared for a while, hell he’s been in love with some other version of Jared for God knows how long. An idea springs to his mind amidst all the racing thoughts. As Jensen reaches him, he steps forward and holds out his hand.

“Hi,” Jared says. “I’m Jared.” Jensen looks befuddled for a few seconds before the realisation dawns on his beautiful face, his green eyes twinkling in the moonlight as he smiles softly.

“Nice to meet you, Jared,” he replies. “I’m Jensen.” Jared’s not sure that pretending that they’ve just met will work at first but when Jensen invites him back to his place for some more beers he doesn’t say no.

\--

Later when Jensen asks if he can kiss him, Jared doesn’t say no. And much, much later as they’re kissing each other hard enough to leave bruise, tearing at each other’s clothes and tripping over themselves as they make their way to the bedroom, Jared  _definitely_  isn't saying no.

 

_**Fin.** _

 

 


End file.
